Insist Upon It
by QueenOfTheDreamers87
Summary: 1973. Voldemort keeps Bellatrix after a debriefing meeting to properly express how pleased he is with her combat performance. Circumlocution and fantasy swirls as Voldemort's words and Bellatrix's mind hint at what might someday pass between them. After all, he has the right to insist upon that sort of thing... as her master. Bellamort T-rated One-Shot.


_August, 1973_

"Well, well, well. Lucius Malfoy. I must say, as far as combat debuts go, yours was… impressive." Voldemort smirked where he sat at the head of the table. Young Lucius, who had just graduated Hogwarts and been made a Death Eater, bowed his head. His icy blond hair fell round his angled face, and his own thin lips curled in a happy smile. Bellatrix sniffed where she sat. Her little sister Narcissa was in love with Lucius. It was a good thing, probably, that the boy was proving himself to be an able servant of the Dark Lord.

"Master, I only hope that I will continue to be of use to you," purred Lucius, and Lord Voldemort pulled his fingertips through his greying dark waves. He nodded.

"You will be," he assured the boy. "That Knockback Jinx was highly charged. You're lucky, of course, that Bellatrix was there to finish off Estella Madgen for you, weren't you?"

Bellatrix's heart picked up in her chest. Lucius raised his eyes to Bellatrix, staring across the table, and nodded. From beside Lucius, Rodolphus Lestrange's gave Bellatrix a look of sincerest longing. His wedding to Bellatrix was taking place the next month, and Bellatrix knew that Rodolphus was anxious to marry her. Now both Lucius and Rodolphus stared at her, and she shifted a little as she said quietly,

"My Lord, you know well that I would gladly kill every enemy on every battlefield for you."

"And I would gladly let you do so, if I could." Voldemort smirked a little. He drummed his fingertips on his desk and asked the assembled group more seriously, "How long until we capture Albus Dumbledore? When does this menace meet his end?"

"We all fight ardently for your victory, My Lord," Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus' older brother, assured the Dark Lord. "We would all lay down our lives -"

"Yes, and I've already lost a few of you in fruitless pursuits against our enemy that have, ultimately, led nowhere," Voldemort snapped. He dragged his fingers through his hair again and lowered his eyes. "I want to fight Albus Dumbledore wand-to-wand. Just him and me, our powers battling, so that he will see that I am the superior force and he is not the all-consuming factor in our world he thinks himself to be."

There was a heavy quiet in the room then, and Voldemort licked his bottom lip carefully. He looked up, stared at Bellatrix for a moment, and then glanced to Augustus Rookwood.

"We have many spies in the Ministry," he said, and Rookwood nodded.

"So we have, Master."

"I want spies at Hogwarts," Voldemort said in a tight tone. Rookwood looked anxious. He flicked his eyes about and admitted,

"That… may be more difficult, My Lord. The teachers at the school are all ferociously loyal to Albus Dumbledore. Portraits are doubled, yes, but he knows that, too, and he guards his conversations. Perhaps a few Slytherin students who can report using encoded communication systems? Methods more secure than traditional letter-by-owl?"

"Think something up and get me a plan," Voldemort said. "I want eyes and ears in the school on a day-to-day basis… not just for Dumbledore. I want to know what the Blood Traitors are up to. I want to know what the Mudbloods are saying about me. I need information, Rookwood. Get it for me."

"Yes, Master." Rookwood bowed his head again. Voldemort sighed heavily and said to Rodolphus Lestrange,

"I'll be at the wedding."

Bellatrix perked up at that. She felt her brows raise, and she sat up a little. But Voldemort did not look at her. He just kept staring at Rodolphus, and he demanded,

"I should like the cake to be chocolate. Roasted duck at the meal. Precisely none of the new-fangled music for dancing. Am I understood?"

"Quite understood, My Lord. We shall be honoured," Rodolphus breathed, looking over to Bellatrix before returning his eyes to Voldemort. The Dark Lord sniffed a bit and nodded.

"If there's nothing else, then you're all dismissed. Lie low for a little while after this scuffle in Surrey. Lucius, keep up the fine work. Rookwood, sooner rather than later on the spy plants. The rest of you, await my call. Go."

Bellatrix pushed back her chair and began to rise, but Voldemort cleared his throat and murmured gently from where he sat,

"Not you, Miss Black. Stay."

She hesitated, nodding to Rodolphus when he glanced back over his shoulder. Bellatrix stood by the table and waited for the room to clear out, and once it had, she watched the doors shut and heard a little click. Had he just locked them, she wondered? Had Lord Voldemort just locked everyone else out of the meeting room? Her breath picked up a little in her nostrils, and she gulped. Voldemort moved very slowly and deliberately as his chair legs scraped the floor and he stood. He moved toward Bellatrix, towering over her, and he stared down.

He was scarred, broken by some magic she did not know. His eyes and hair were dark, but his skin was pale. She could tell - it was quite obvious - that he had been unspeakably handsome in his youth. He was in his late forties now, she knew. She didn't care. She could hardly breathe with him so near. When she did intake a breath, she smelled the salt air of the ocean, and she swooned a little.

"Bellatrix." Her name came out from between his lips like spun gold, like candied peppermint. She shut her eyes for a moment and then forced them open again and whispered,

"My Lord."

"I did not show you, perhaps, sufficient appreciation at the meeting."

"No?" Bellatrix's voice was a weak wisp then, and she gazed up into his eyes as he shook his head.

"You could have handled Estella Madgen all by yourself; you didn't need Lucius Malfoy's adorable little Knockback Jinx."

She could not help but smile then, and she shrugged. "He needs practise. We all started somewhere."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes and tipped his head a little. "If I recall correctly, Bella, your first combat experience was during a thunderstorm, and the first spell you cast was a Killing Curse that very nearly missed Rabastan Lestrange."

"It did miss him, though," Bellatrix pointed out. "I hit Juno Wilkins straight in the chest in one shot."

"You didn't need any practise," Voldemort said, his voice soft. Suddenly the air seemed to crackle, and Bellatrix found herself humming,

"I leapt right into serving you, I suppose. My Lord."

"And you have served me every day since," he nodded, "including in the moments after Lucius Malfoy did his very best with a Knockback Jinx and you finished things off the most lovely little _Avada Kedavra_ a witch has ever incanted. Hmm?"

Bellatrix grinned. "Are Killing Curses as lovely as that, My Lord?"

"Sometimes they are. When they come from the right wands… from the right…" Voldemort trailed off then, and his throat seemed to constrict. He closed his eyes and then slowly opened them, glancing down to Bellatrix's shoulder. "I insist upon a dance with the bride next month."

"Thank you." For some reason, those were the words that came out of Bellatrix's mouth. She let them hover in the air, and then Voldemort's breath was ragged, audible in its jarring little puffs. He finally growled out,

"I ought to insist upon other things. It is my right. I am your master."

"You can have… whatever you want, My Lord." Bellatrix's stomach twisted, and she wished he would look at her. She tried to steady her breath and her heartbeat, but she found herself just standing there imagining things. He wanted to insist upon… what, exactly? Suddenly her mind was flooded with vivid notions of their mouths locked together, of the taste of black pepper upon his tongue. Suddenly she could feel his hands coursing around her ribcage, grasping at her hips, squeezing her chest. She shivered as her mind cooked up wild, fanciful sensations of where his fingers might venture, of other parts of him. Was that what he wanted? What did he want to insist upon?

She would give him everything. She would give him her life; she would more than willingly give him her body. _Please insist upon it,_ she found herself screaming in her mind. _Insist, Master!_

"Go," he whispered, still staring at the shoulder of her leather tunic. Bellatrix's chest crumpled, and she felt the air knocked out of her liked she'd been kicked. She tried to meet his eyes, but he would not look at her. She huffed a breath and whispered desperately,

"My Lord?"

"Excellent work in Surrey, as always. You serve me well, Bella. Dismissed."

Bellatrix's lips fell open, and she bowed her head. She started to walk away from him, to walk toward the door, and as she did, she realised that she would give all the gold in her Gringotts vault for one slide of his hand over her bare skin, one touch of his lips against hers, one -

"Bella."

She whirled around from where she stood at the door, and she was shocked to see Voldemort striding toward her. Bellatrix's eyes went round, and for a split second she thought he was about to seize her face in his hands, crush her mouth with his, and groan against her. But that was just a fantasy. He stopped a step and a half away and held something out, and Bellatrix trembled as she reached for her wand.

"You left this sitting on the table," Voldemort said tightly, and Bellatrix dampened her lips with her tongue.

"So sorry, Master," she whispered. "I shall be more careful."

"Good day, then," he nodded. Bellatrix found his eyes at long last, and he seemed to be searching hers for something. He stared and stared, and then he nodded, and Bellatrix finally put her hand on the doorknob. She pushed open the door, and it clicked to unlock itself. She shut the door behind her, and once she was out in the corridor, separated from him by the heavy wood of the meeting room doors, she felt tears rise to her eyes.

_Please insist upon it,_ she'd thought, imagining his hands and his lips upon her. It was his right, he'd said. He was her master.

But as she walked off down the corridor, she knew she was nothing to him but a silly little soldier pining after her commander, and she felt very small indeed.


End file.
